


Prince Charming

by gingertart50



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-27 00:56:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1709096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingertart50/pseuds/gingertart50
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deathly Hallows never happened. *shakes head emphatically*  </p>
<p>Harry wakes after the final battle to find himself in a predicament, while Snape finds a new source of potions ingredients.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prince Charming

Harry woke up curled around a log. The position was unfamiliar, although it was surprisingly comfortable, given that he had a niggling feeling that he should not have woken up at all. He wriggled slightly, breathed in the woody smell of the log and rubbed his chin on the rough bark in a contemplative manner. He stuck out his tongue and tasted the odours of lichen, moss, insects, bruised plants and recently cut wood, human hands and small rodents, and then he went back to sleep. Killing Dark Lords was exhausting work, after all.   
  
The next time he woke, Harry realised that he could not blink. He tried to raise a hand to rub at his eyes but nothing happened, except for a mild rippling sensation down his sides; all the way down his sides to his tail, which twitched in front of his face. At that stage, he decided that oblivion was indeed the preferable option.   
  
The third time, the light woke him. He raised his head to look and hit it on something. He moved forwards in surprise and bruised his nose. He could see nothing above or in front of him and wondered if someone had erected a magical barrier around his bed or his log…around his log, plus an area of gravel with a shallow dish of water half-buried in it and a few branches and rocks. A swift glance was enough to estimate the limits of his rectangular abode and assure him that he was, indeed, inside a large glass tank. He noticed that the diamond-patterned body lying in the tank was attached to his own head. He put that thought aside for later analysis and stared out through the glass wall of his vivarium.   
  
His view of the room was unfamiliar, since the tank was on a bench near the floor, but he was clearly in one of the classrooms in the dungeon at Hogwarts. He had spent too many hours sweating over cauldrons at one of those workbenches or staring at the teacher at the front desk to mistake them.   
  
Two wizards were walking slowly through the room. Their voices echoed oddly in the tank, and at first, Harry had difficulty making out their words.   
  
“Of course I rewrote the syllabus for the seventh years,” the rotund older wizard said, then added hastily, “Only a bit, my dear boy! But you set some very advanced work for them and although the Slytherins coped admirably, the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors did struggle a teensy bit.”   
  
“Quite,” murmured his taller, thinner companion.   
  
“The stores are a bit low, it was so hard to obtain fresh ingredients during the war and we did need to make up a lot of supplies for Poppy’s stocks, but I’m sure you’ll manage.”   
  
“Undoubtedly.”   
  
“I’ll leave you to it, then! Do Floo me if you need to ask anything at all, I’m always available with a helping hand and a shoulder to cry on, you know that!”   
  
“So kind of you, Horace,” said the tall wizard in the black robe. Even as a snake, Harry heard the sarcasm in that deep, dark voice. If he had still possessed eyebrows, they would have shot to the top of Harry’s head.   
  
Snape watched as Horace Slughorn lumbered out of the dungeon then he let out a breath and his black eyes flickered as he gazed around the room. Snape looked thin and pale, with dark lines beneath his eyes, and he moved slowly, as if exhausted. Harry wondered how long he had been asleep and what he must have missed. He could not believe that Severus Snape was once again teaching potions at Hogwarts, yet how else could the conversation be interpreted?   
  
Snape looked around, flicking his wand to levitate a stray cauldron to the storeroom, close a gaping cupboard door and send a roll of parchment to the front desk. He must have noticed the movement as Harry tracked him across the room, or else he felt eyes upon him. He glided to the tank and sneered down.   
  
“Well, Nagini, what a come-down for the familiar of the greatest dark wizard of our age,” he said. “To be used for potions by cack-handed imbeciles.”   
  
“No way!” Harry cried, but it came out as “Sss-hhsss!” He hit the top of his head on the underside of the lid in his agitation. Snape muttered something and swung his wand, and Harry felt the wards on the tank tighten like elastic bands. “Snape!” Harry exclaimed, and heard “Sss-ahh!”   
  
“Revenge is indeed, sweet,” Snape murmured and strode out, dousing the lights as he went.   
  
“Oh, buggeration,” Harry said to himself. It emerged as a Parseltongue hiss.   
  
Harry spent a few minutes desperately wondering how he could escape, then realised that a very large venomous snake, loose in a school of witches and wizards, would have the life expectancy of a field mouse in a nest of Kneazles.   
  
What did Snape mean, was he intending to butcher Nagini for ingredients? What would happen to Harry if he did? Things were not looking good for Harry Potter. He fell asleep again while pondering that horribly familiar state of affairs.   
  
Harry woke, stretched and bumped his already bruised nose against the side of his tank. He sipped a little water from his dish, having discovered by trial and error that a snake drinks by dipping its lower jaw under the water then tipping up its head to let the water run down its throat. Snape appeared in a flurry of black, placed some jars on the shelves and went out again.   
  
Obviously there was no point in waiting to be noticed; Harry needed to attract attention.   
  
He opened his mouth and picked up a stick. He had never attempted to do such a thing before and found it distinctly unpleasant. The bits of bark stuck to the delicate membranes inside his mouth, they tasted odd and his fangs got in the way, catching on the branches. Even so, he persevered until he had cleared an area of gravel and then laid out a pattern of twigs to form the letters PLEH. Then he moved back, looked at his handiwork, sighed and reversed the sticks to read HELP. He spent some time chasing fragments of bark around his mouth with his tongue and flicking them out until he had the idea of rinsing his mouth in the water bowl.   
  
The next time Snape came in, levitating a cauldron, Harry began tapping on the front of the tank with his tail. Snape took no notice, even when he bashed the lid of the tank with his head. All Harry achieved was a dull headache. He settled down to sulk and found himself watching as Snape lit a fire beneath a large steel cauldron and started to brew. With nothing better to do, Harry attempted to identify the ingredients.   
  
He recognised a medical potion of some description, but it was too advanced for the Hogwarts syllabus. Snape chopped, minced, stirred, boiled, decanted and bottled with a fluid economy of motion that was almost hypnotic. Never before had Harry been a room where Snape was brewing, with nothing to do but watch the master at work. Every movement was purposeful and exact, and Snape’s expression was contemplative. The man looked at ease as he diced, sprinkled and mixed. This was what Snape lived for.   
  
Harry wondered if what Snape felt now was akin to the freedom and pleasure that Harry experienced when flying. Eventually, Snape packed the filled phials of potion into a rack, scoured the cauldron, spelled out the fire and left the room.   
  
Harry’s dreams were a muddle of fears and hopes and memories, but he had a clear sense of having escaped something terrible by the skin of his teeth. He remembered the messages from Snape that had enabled him to find and destroy all but one of the remaining Horcruxes, and the battle in which Snape cast the spell to drive the final one out of Nagini. As Voldemort turned to blast his erstwhile lieutenant into dust, Harry had leaped into the fray. Curses collided above the writhing body of the dying snake. Voldemort howled, then the howl died into a gurgle as the Dark Lord burst into green flames. That was the last Harry remembered until he woke in a glass tank. Clearly he had been jolted out of his own body and into the snake by the clashing curses. He wondered if his body, his human Harry Potter form, had already been buried, and if not, whether he had any chance of getting back into it. He was desperate to know whether his friends were still alive and unhurt but had no way of finding out until he managed to communicate.   
  
His ruminations were interrupted by a loud commotion; a clattering, thudding, scraping cacophony that resolved into the sound of a class entering the dungeon and settling themselves at the benches. He raised his head and the nearest students nudged each other, pointing him out and staring in mingled revulsion and fascination. “Hello,” Harry said, attempting to be polite, but the hissing obviously made them nervous.   
  
Snape came in amid a whirl of black robes and hair.   
  
“Drama queen,” Harry remarked. “Ssss-haa sshhhheehh.”   
  
Snape flicked his wand and text appeared on the blackboard.   
  
“Today, you will attempt to make a base which can be used for a number of medical and veterinary potions. Any successful brews will be utilised in the infirmary.” A curl of his lip suggested that he doubted the likelihood of that.   
  
“Although this is not a particularly advanced recipe, it does have some interesting features. It contains a large number of very similar ingredients, which must be added in exactly the right order, at timed intervals. The balance of lemon juice and fermented whale’s milk is vital, you must check the acidity at every stage and correct at once if it begins to change. All the ingredients are in the store cupboard apart from one, which must be freshly harvested no more than an hour before use.” He smirked. “This is of course the snake venom. Dawson, collect one of the test tubes from the cupboard. Miss Hopgood, cease your ridiculous fluttering at once. Five points from Ravenclaw.”   
  
Harry watched as Snape approached the tank. The Potions master faltered for a moment and then he turned slowly on the spot, amid a flare of robes. “Very amusing. Who is responsible for this?” His voice was low and silky, the tone that usually presaged massive loss of points.   
  
Harry realised that Snape had seen the arrangement of twigs.   
  
“Oh, that was me!” he said, “Shhh-ssuss-hhssss!” Quickly, he grabbed a twig and placed it carefully after the final letter to form an exclamation point. The nearest students gasped and pointed.   
  
“Please sir, the snake did it!”   
  
“Silence!” bellowed Snape, turning back to the tank. Harry picked up the twig again but Snape was too preoccupied to notice. He flicked his wand to remove the wards and lift the top of the tank, but before Harry had a chance to react, he found himself pinned down by the back of his neck. His startled thrashing swept away his carefully composed message.   
  
Then his body collapsed out of his control, and he realised that Snape was holding him by magic rather than by hand. He pushed against the spell, testing it. A simple Petrificus Totalus, if he was any judge. He whispered, wondering if the counter-spell would work in Parseltongue and if he could cast it without a wand. The spell slid away from his scales like water. Snape’s eyes widened fractionally and his wand darted out to recast the spell.   
  
“Everyone to the other side of the classroom, at once!”   
  
There was a noisy rush as the students obeyed with more than usual alacrity.   
  
“It’s okay,” Harry said quietly, “Hss hosssahhh.” He drew himself up; fixing Snape with what he hoped was a kindly gaze. “I won’t hurt you.” He felt Snape reinforcing his charm and Harry whispered the counter spell again. When he withdrew a little, hoping to put the man more at ease, Snape must have assumed that he was about to strike.   
  
Snape’s hand flashed out, grasping Harry around the throat. Controlling his urge to struggle, Harry went limp. Snape Accioed the test tube and spoke in his lecturing mode, as if he wrestled reptiles every day.   
  
“As you can see, this snake is a back-fanged species. These are less immediately venomous than the front-fanged snakes, whose bite is usually fatal within minutes; however, I would not advise treating such a large specimen with anything but the greatest respect.”   
  
“Too right,” Harry agreed with a hiss.   
  
“By gripping here, at the back of the jaws, you make the snake open its mouth, and by pressing a tube against the venom sac, milk it of its poison.”   
  
Harry flicked his tongue out of the side of his mouth, licking the skin of Snape’s wrist. Someone squeaked.   
  
“That is merely the snake’s tongue,” Snape said irritably. He thrust the tube into Harry’s mouth, over one of the fangs, and Harry felt a pressure at the base of the tooth and a curious sensation as if he was dribbling uncontrollably. Snape repeated the procedure on the opposite side of his mouth and held up the small tube, now half-filled with clear amber liquid. “You will require two drops of venom per cauldron. Do not waste it and avoid contact with your skin and eyes. Cartwright, take your allocation and hand it on.”   
  
As Snape passed the tube of venom to the reluctant Hufflepuff student, Harry licked the Potions master’s wrist again. His flavour was complex and invigorating, with hints of soap, salt, bitter potions and smoke. Snape shifted his grip on Harry’s neck, preparing to return him to his tank. Harry’s lax body was a dead weight and Snape was forced to use one hand to lift its coils up over the edge of the glass. Harry jerked back and to his own surprise, pulled free of Snape’s grasp. The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs gasped as snake and Snape froze, eye to eye. “Do not move,” Snape said. His voice betrayed no hint of fear even though there was a suspicious sheen of sweat on his upper lip. “Even if she strikes, there is not sufficient venom remaining to cause anything but a mild and transitory reaction. This snake is accustomed to being handled and I am familiar to her.”   
  
“Very true,” Harry commented, the hissing giving rise to a chorus of gasps. Snape’s hand, amid the black folds of his robe, was inching towards his wand, which he had placed on the nearest bench. Harry’s head darted out and he seized the wand. He was startled by the speed this body could command; he no sooner decided upon the action than it was completed. He once again faced Snape, this time with the man’s wand gripped cross-wise in his jaws.   
  
Harry had rarely touched a wand that was not his own. He, Ron and Hermione had occasionally traded wands, in a spirit of experimentation, and the results had not been very satisfactory. Snape’s was completely unfamiliar but Harry could feel the magic in it, built up over many years of use by a powerful wizard. It felt dark, not evil but shadowed and illusive, as dangerous as an unstable potion.   
  
Snape reached out to snatch it and Harry threw himself backwards just in time. Sparks trailed from the tip of the black wand as it whipped through the air, fading slowly as they fell.   
  
Snape wiped his hands down his robes and stepping forward. Harry realised that he had only moments to act. Turning away from Snape, he swept the wand in a circle, creating a fiery ring. Inside it, moving as quickly as he could, he wrote the first words that came into his head. “I am Harry”. The writing was wobbly because he had to use his whole head and body to create it, but he heard Snape’s breath come out in a rush. Then Snape’s hand swept out, erasing the message.   
  
Harry waited, trembling with anticipation, as Snape snarled at his class.   
  
“Well, what are you waiting for? Do you not have potions to brew?” Then he spun round and snatched his wand, tearing it from Harry’s grasp in a move so fast that it took him totally by surprise.   
  
“I don’t know what you are,” Snape said in a whisper that was so full of rage that it sounded more like a choked scream, “Or who put you up to this, but by Merlin, you’re going to pay!” He seized Harry by the neck and thrust him into the tank, slamming the lid down and then casting wards so strong that Harry heard them sizzle. A last glare from furious black eyes, and Snape was gone, striding across the room to sneer at an inoffensive little Hufflepuff.   
  
“That went well,” Harry muttered to himself. He felt shaken and distressed. Why did Snape not believe him? He curled up in a sad heap and buried his head beneath his coils.   
  


oooOOOooo   
  


Harry woke suddenly with a heightened awareness of something out of place. Moving his head as little as possible, he peered around and almost missed the black-clad figure in the darkened dungeon. As Snape approached, Harry tried to analyse what was making his nerves jangle. Snape did not stalk or glide. He moved slowly, putting one black boot carefully in front of the other at a painstaking pace that wobbled just a tiny bit. He stared down, his face in shadow but the edges of his nose, his cheek and his hair edged in the faintest glow from the open door.   
  
When he took out his wand, Harry resisted the urge to flinch. Snape passed the tip of the wand back and forth across the lid of the tank and Harry felt the wards disperse in an untidy fizzle of magic that made his nerves jangle.   
  
“I don’t know what or who you are,” Snape muttered, “Not the Dark Lord, I suppose.” He leaned down and the alcohol in his breath made Harry’s eyes sting. “Not Potter,” he said with the precise enunciation of a man who knows that he is very drunk, “Not bloody Potter. He’s dying.”   
  
“What?” Harry yelped, except that it sounded more like a boiling kettle being kicked.   
  
Snape sat down suddenly on the floor next to the tank. His wand fell to the stone floor with a clatter and rolled gently to a halt. “Potter’s dying,” Snape repeated, and Harry wondered if he imagined the liquid shimmer in a black eye. “Despite everything I did, every potion I could brew. I don’t know why.” He shook his head, hair flopping around his face in oily strands. He stared down at his hands, lying on their backs in his lap. Harry was mesmerised by the sight of the controlled and powerful man in this state, with the same horrified fascination as a helpless onlooker at an accident.   
  
“Pomfrey says he is sinking deeper into a coma. She wants to send him to St Mungo’s, as if we haven’t had every self-proclaimed expert here already!”   
  
He sniffed. “Wankers.” He pitched to one side, placed a hand on the floor and levered himself up to his feet, where he stood swaying gently like a pine tree in a strong breeze. He shoved the lid from the tank with a sudden access of energy, thrusting the sheet of glass back until it teetered, fell and smashed, sending splinters of glass sparkling across the flagstones like frost. Snape reached inside, grasped Harry around the body and lifted him up with both hands, so that the snake’s head was level with his own face. “Come on, then, Nagini,” he said in a curiously steady voice, “You should have enough venom by now. Make it quick, will you?” He shook the cumbersome reptile back and forth. “Bite me.”   
  
Harry wanted to say, “Snape, you are pissed!” and “Nothing’s as bad as all that,” and “Am I really dying?” What he did was throw a heavy coil around Snape’s neck and rub the side of his head against the man’s cheek. Snape started to laugh, a pained and desperate sound that was almost keening, clutching the snake to him in an embrace that held nothing of affection. Harry simultaneously wanted to hug the man and smack him round the head. What he did, in a moment of desperate inspiration, was stare into the infinite black of Snape’s eyes and wordlessly cast “Legilimens”.   
  
Harry was thrown into a maelstrom of memories as Snape, dazed with alcohol, struggled to eject him from his mind. Harry saw a seemingly infinite number of Harrys, from a small, wide-eyed eleven-year-old right up to the most recent recollection of a motionless Harry Potter lying in the infirmary and surrounded by his friends. His friends! There were Hermione and Ron and a cluster of other Weasleys, Neville, Minerva McGonagall, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Luna and Ginny. The Potions master had barely glanced at them, but it was enough for Harry to see that they were alive and well.   
  
All Snape had focused on was Harry’s waxen face. He saw Snape’s fingers creep across the sheet when no one was looking, to touch his pallid hand in a swift, subtle caress. He saw Snape alone in his dungeon rooms, a bottle of Firewhisky at his elbow, staring dry-eyed into the fire until he lurched to his feet and swept along the corridor to the classroom, where memory merged into the present. Snape and snake stared at one another, stunned.   
  
“You love me,” Harry whispered in a Parseltongue hiss of astonishment.   
  
“You’re Potter,” Snape blurted, his voice quivering in a way that Harry could not believe. “Oh fucking hell, you really are Potter.” He sat down hard on the stone floor, hugging as much of the snake as he could gather into his arms. Bemused, Harry wound himself around Snape’s body, squeezing gently. The man smelt of medicinal potions, of alcohol, smoke, sweat and magic; he smelt real and human. Harry lapped at the side of his neck with his tongue, tasting him. “When I destroyed the Horcrux, I must have left a vacuum in the snake,” Snape said. “When you were thrown out of your body, you were sucked into Nagini. Dear Merlin, you could so easily have been killed; I almost butchered you to use you for potions! Thank the gods I decided to keep you to harvest your venom!”   
  
Snape groped for his wand and scrambled to his feet, barely able to stand with the alcohol in his system and a very large snake draped around his shoulders. He reeled across the dungeon, out of the door and along the subterranean corridor towards the stairs. A couple of Slytherin prefects, coming in the opposite direction with books under their arms, stared for a moment, caught sight of Snape’s expression and slid past with their faces averted. Harry would have given a lot to be a fly on the wall of the Slytherin common room that night.   
  
When they reached the first of the moving staircases, Snape staggered to an unsteady halt, pointed his wand and snarled “Immbobulus – Immable – fuck it, stay still!” The staircase, perhaps invested with a vestigial magical awareness, froze in place. Snape stamped upwards, muttering under his breath, while Harry resisted an urge to tighten his coils and dared not look at the drop over the banister. 

oooOOOooo 

Madam Pomfrey placed herself in the doorway of the infirmary, wand raised.   
  
“Severus Snape! This is outrageous!”   
  
“This, Madam,” Snape said, his diction as precise as cut glass, “Is no mere snake; it is, in reality, Harry James Potter.”   
  
“You are drunk.”   
  
Snape considered this statement and nodded sagely.   
  
“Probably. However, this does not alter the facts. Potter is living in Nagini.”   
  
Harry raised his head, stared at the matron and nodded, trying to look as friendly, harmless and intelligent as possible.   
  
“How?” Pomfrey demanded.   
  
“The Dark Lord placed a portion of his soul in the snake. I destroyed it. Potter was thrown out of his body and took its place. Excuse me, I am about to – bleegghh!”   
  
Snape leaned over and was spectacularly sick, lost his balance and had it not been for Madam Pomfrey’s quick wand-work, would have landed in a tangle of snake and vomit. The nurse tutted and levitated the now green-hued Potions master onto a bed. Harry slithered down onto the floor.   
  
“Harry?” Madam Pomfrey queried, understandably nervous. Harry nodded eagerly and looked around. “That way,” she said, and he wriggled after her, towards the bed in the corner.   
  
Hermione and Ron were sitting together, holding hands and gazing morosely at their comatose friend. They looked up as the nurse came through the curtains.   
  
“I’m not sure if I believe this myself,” she said, “But I have some news for you…” 

oooOOOooo 

Harry woke slowly, with that vaguely weak, sick and headachy feeling that follows a high temperature and a long time in bed. He screwed up his eyelids against the light. He realised that he once again possessed eyelids and he opened them. He stared up at the familiar ceiling of the Hogwarts infirmary and then allowed his head to roll to one side.   
  
“Hello, Hermione.” His voice sounded thin and scratchy but at least he did not hiss. Hermione gasped and moved as if she wanted to hug him then thought better of it.   
  
“Harry?”   
  
“Yeah, that’s me.”   
  
“Harry!” Ron came around the screens surrounding the bed, his face splitting in that old, familiar grin. “Hey, mate, how’re you feeling?”   
  
“Pretty shitty,” Harry admitted. “How did I get back?”   
  
“Hermione found this ritual,” Ron said proudly, “A bit dark, used for transferring Horcruxes from one receptacle to another, but it seemed to work.”   
  
“What happened to Nagini?”   
  
“Dead, I’m afraid. Why, did you want to keep her or something?”   
  
Harry shuddered.   
  
“No, just wondered. Um, have you seen Professor Snape?”   
  
Ron and Hermione exchanged glances.   
  
“I think I heard him earlier,” Hermione said.   
  
“Good afternoon.” The deep voice was back to its old dark timbre. Snape glided around the privacy curtains, his black robes billowing. He was holding a blue glass bottle. “Your potion, Potter.” He spared a mild sneer for Hermione and Ron, who glowered back.   
  
“Well, what are you waiting for? Drink it, I don’t have all day.”   
  
“You’d never believe that we were all on the same side, would you?” Ron grumbled.   
  
Harry’s fingers brushed Snape’s as he took the potion. Because all his senses were attuned to the Potions master, Harry heard the slight hitch in his breath and saw his hand tremble. Hermione’s eyes narrowed and she looked at Harry, then at Snape.   
  
“Come on, Ron.” She got to her feet. “Harry needs to rest.”   
  
“He’s only just woken up,” Ron pointed out, but his girlfriend grasped his wrist and tugged him along after her.   
  
“We’ll come and see you later, Harry,” she called as she dragged the reluctant Ron out. Harry could hear him complaining all the way across the infirmary and out into the corridor. He turned his head and gazed into black eyes that were, for once, unshielded, open to his gaze, vulnerable and wondering.   
  
“You want this?” Snape whispered and Harry smiled.   
  
“I want you.”   
  
Snape sat down on the edge of the bed, moving warily, as if he did not quite believe that Harry meant it.   
  
“It won’t be easy.”   
  
“Has anything ever been easy, for either of us?” Harry knew that it was up to him to make the first move. He reached out, weaving his fingers between Snape’s until their hands were knotted together on the white counterpane. “Look on the bright side,” he added, “At least I’m no longer a snake.”   
  
“I agree that I would rather be nibbled by you in human form.”   
  
Harry disentangled his hand and held out his arms.   
  
“Um, Severus, what are you waiting for?”   
  
He watched in wonder as Snape’s lips curved into a genuine smile and then all he could see was a close-up of Snape’s eyes and nose as the mouth was pressed to the side of his neck, exploring beneath his jaw, suckling at the tender skin of his throat.   
  
“You love me,” Harry whispered in Parseltongue, a hiss suffused with wonder. “My Half-blood Prince. You love me.”   
  
Snape was too busy to comment. 

oooOOOooo 

Harry woke up curled around a warm, lean body. The position was unfamiliar and he opened his eyes to find himself staring at a head with long, untidy black hair. He could smell a faint but distinctive aroma of potions. A Slytherin banner hung from the ceiling above the canopy of the four-poster bed.   
  
Snape’s mouth, relaxed in sleep, was not thin-lipped or sneering at all. It appeared so tempting that Harry licked a broad wet stripe down the arrogant prow of Snape’s nose, tickled the upper lip, and inserted the tip of his tongue into the Potions master’s mouth. Snape’s grasp tightened around him and his black eyes snapped open.   
  
“Hello,” Harry said, pulling back a little and smiling.   
  
“Well well, you’re still here,” Snape said, in a voice that held a little irony and a lot of wonder.   
  
“Of course I am.” Harry licked his nose again, revelling in the warmth and strength of the limbs tangled with his own. “I’m here to stay. You charmed me.”   
  
“Charming snakes is exhausting work,” Snape mumbled, nuzzling into Harry’s neck and stifling a yawn again his skin. “Wake me for breakfast.”   
  
“What d’you want for breakfast?” Harry asked, wondering if he could get Dobby to bring something to the dungeon.   
  
“You.”   
  
“Half-blood Prince,” Harry said, “I think I love you.”   
  
He curled himself tighter into the warm embrace and fell asleep, to dream words of love in Parseltongue.


End file.
